Nobel Peace Prize winner to be announced Oct 12

OSLO (Reuters) - The winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on Oct. 12, the Norwegian Nobel Institute said on Thursday.

The secretive five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee will select the winner of what many consider the world's most prestigious accolade from a near record field of 181 nominees.

The committee does not disclose the names of nominees, but those who make nominations sometimes publish their choices, and this year's candidates include former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for his efforts to raise awareness of climate change.

Other nominees announced by backers include Inuit campaigner Sheila Watt-Cloutier for her work to show how global warming affects indigenous people and Poland's Irene Sendler who saved 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto in World War Two.

The 2006 peace prize went to Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank for their efforts to lift millions out of poverty by granting them tiny loans, spawning a global movement known as microcredit.

The peace laureate's name is customarily announced on a Friday in mid-October, and the 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.46 million) prize handed over annually in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of Swedish philanthropist and inventor Alfred Nobel, who created the prizes.

Announcements of this year's Nobel prizes will begin on Oct. 8 with the physiology and medicine award.

Nobel provided in his will for five prizes, in physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, literature and peace. An economics prize in his memory was created in 1968, and it too is considered one of the six Nobel prizes.

The peace award is the only one granted in Norway, the other five are announced in the Swedish capital, Stockholm.